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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24261700">ALIENIGENA</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zancrow/pseuds/Zancrow'>Zancrow</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Alien Series, 彼方のアストラ | Kanata no Astra | Astra Lost in Space (Manga)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Action/Adventure, Body Horror, Drama, Drama &amp; Romance, Eventual Smut, F/M, Gen, Horror, Multi, Outer Space, Romance</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 22:47:48</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>17,313</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24261700</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zancrow/pseuds/Zancrow</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A distress call forces Group B5 to postpone their trip to McPa, sending them to a undisclosed location only known as "LV. 426". As horrific organisms are discovered, Aries cannot fathom how there can be beauty in horror, and desire in survival. In another universe, these nine kids could have survived being lost in space. But now, can they survive the greatest horror known to outer space?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Charce Lacroix &amp; Yun-hua Lu, Kanata Hoshijima &amp; Aries Spring, Polina Livinskaya/Ulgar Zweig, Zack Walker &amp; Quitterie Raffaeli</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Fieldtrip Interrupted</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Hello Everyone, Zancrow Here!</p><p>I find myself recently enamored with the anime adaptation of a fascinating manga called Kanata no Astra. So what was the first thing that popped into my head? Why, Ridley Scotts’ Alien films of course (proper credit to James Cameron too)! So, as I write this fanfiction about the terror of space travel where out likeable Group B5 students have a run in with the perfect organism known as the Xenomorph, I hope any other sci-fi nerds such as myself will wish to join me in this journey. It will be romance heavy, because in reality life-threatening scenarios tend to push people together, and you really can’t get more life-threatening than facehuggers all up on your throat!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Year: 2063 A.D.</p><p>Region: Outer Veil – Neroid Sector.</p><p>Emptiness abounded.</p><p>Through the vast emptiness of space, a lone excursion vessel traveled at high speeds, ripping through the cosmos on route to a nearby planet called “McPa”. The space vessel, with large, bold letters spelling out “CAIRD High School 05” on its side, currently carried a grand total of twelve travelers, eight of which were the students stated to remain in McPa for the duration of the assignments five days, plus one puppet wearing little girl who’s role was to be the unique task that the other students must tend to. Opinions on this were split. For some, like the airheaded and always optimist Aries Spring, it would mean the more the merrier. For others, like the more openly snarky Luca Esposito, it would be a drag to have to carry a kid around all the time, but at least the kid’s older sister was with them, so they could just lump them together and be done with it.</p><p>Soon, the spaceship stabilized in its speed, the course properly set, there destination now less than four hours of space travel away.</p><p>“We have reached faster-than-light cruising speed,” the group’s sunglasses wearing teacher and one of the two co-pilots of the ship announced, as his helmet deactivated with a synthetic sound. “You may deactivate your helmets and move about the cabin.”</p><p>No sooner had he announced this than had the complaining and whining began.</p><p>“Phew!” Luca exclaimed as he quickly stood up and stretched himself. “It’s kinda stuffy in here, Can we open any windows?”</p><p>“Ugh. We have four hours to go?” the elder sister of their “collective task”, Quitterie Raffaeli, groaned. “Is there TV we can watch or something?”</p><p>“Is there a shower on this ship?” Zack Walker asked in a stoic tone, as the bespectacled teen was known for.</p><p>“Sir, I can’t truly relax on this flight unless I can change into my bathrobe,” implored another student, Charce Lecroix, seemingly equally interested in the washing chambers.</p><p>“Do any of you have any idea what it means to be on an interstellar flight?!” their teacher, Danio Yamanobe, asked the murmuring group, flabbergasted despite only being in space with the lot for less than a few proper minutes. The nine kids each glanced at him briefly, yet turned back to their individual exploration and machinations, as Yamanobe felt utterly ignored.</p><p>As all the students chatted and moved through the cabin, their self-proclaimed “leader” and last addition, in a sense, to their group took out one of the drinks from the nearby vending machines, thankfully free-of-charge for the would-be space explorers. Kanata Hoshijima, aged seventeen just like all the rest, save for the ten-year-old little sister / luggage Funicia Raffaeli, needed a decent drink to try and calm his nerves, as it felt like forever since he had long promised himself and a certain someone that he would be out there, flying amongst the stars. </p><p>Funnily enough, moments before he could even set foot on the spaceship, he almost got arrested in a case of mistaken identity thanks to being a good Samaritan and attempting to help a fellow student in need. Then again, he had no regrets, because it also meant she got to come along too, and as a member of “his” crew, he’d swear he’d protect all. Shame he had messed up his anti-gravity shoes in the stunt, since had intended to use them to the fullest extent at McPa.</p><p>“Thank you for your help at the spaceport,” the girl he had saved spoke to him, surprising him slightly as he realized that she had made her way towards him from her own sitting. She, like the rest of them, was wearing their hand-selected space attire, form fitting to a fault and colored to match the individual’s tastes. In her case, it was mostly white with quite a bit of pink on it, just as pink as the color of her attention grabbing hair.</p><p>“Hello, Aries Spring!” he greeted. “What a coincidence we’re in the same group!”</p><p>“Oh wow! You already remember my name!” Aries excitedly replied, bowing softly to the boy. “Thank you very much! And you’re Kanata, um… Kanata something-something Domber!”</p><p>“How ‘bout you remember my real name too?!” he exclaimed, his face slightly red at how she seemed to remember his failed attempt at an attack move rather than his actual group introduction. Some Captain he was turning out to be, can’t even properly set up a decent first impression with his crew.</p><p>She seemingly ignored his plea, as she proceeded to bow again and thank the boy once more, despite his embarrassed protests that she really didn’t have to. It had honestly not been that big of a deal. Still, she insisted, offering his some frozen tangerines she had brought along, something which reminded him of a doting grandmother from the shows he used to watch.</p><p>Still, he learned that she was a very approachable and easy to talk to young girl, cheerful and attentive, even to his tales about his hopes and his dreams. It was odd, he admitted, to find someone so earnest in their kindness. The sat at one of the round tables, with the tangerines on a plate and some coffee on mugs, as they spoke about his intentions for the future. She seemed honestly interested, so he indulged her.</p><p>Aries, for her part, liked to see people talk about stuff that they liked. She couldn’t quite explain it, but it was always noticeable. That spark in their eyes, when they began to say stuff from the heart, stuff that she felt maybe someone else had been too busy or uninterested in hearing them out on. She wished she could relate, she really did, but for what she lacked in her own aspirations she found joy in that of others. And this young man, Kanata, for how tall and outright rugged he looked despite his age, spoke with the glee of a little kid when the topic of space exploration came up. And she found it adorable!</p><p>As they spoke, she also took notice of their surroundings, on the fellow students that would be her teammates for the next five days. To her side, she could see the Raffaeli sisters walking about, Quitterie leading little Funicia to a nearby table with a drink on her hand. Behind where Kanata was seated, sat another one of the boys, the one who had complained to the teacher about his bathrobe. Charce, Aries believed his name was. It was quick, but the moment her eyes had drifted to the blond youth, she could have sworn he had been looking straight at her, but he seemed to actually be focused on the food station directly behind her, which would make a lot more sense.</p><p>Aries and Kanata spoke at length about his plans to one day command his own spaceship and crew, how he was inspired by a person to whom he owed a lot to. It was all so, charming, she’d note; and she told him in no uncertain terms that she would cheer him on from then henceforth. She also offered him some barley tea she had, which caused him to once again compare her to an always-prepared-never-take-“no”-for-an-answer grandmother.</p><p>They all continued to talk to one another, all of them seated in different tables an occasionally shifting seats to turn to another student for conversation, except for two of the students, who each seemed to much prefer solitude and silence. These were the ever serious looking Ulgar Zweig, seating alone at the furthest table, glaring at what seemed to be nothingness; and the ever shy Yun-hua Lu, the only one amongst them who had returned to her proper seating in the cabin. The hours passed sooner than the previously complaining teenagers would have thought, and in less than an hour, they’d all be arriving at their destination…</p><p>…until their navigational system gave out a strange code.</p><p>“…Yamanobe,” the other co-pilot of the vessel, a pudgy blond mustached individual, spoke up, softly. “Am I reading this right? This can’t be what I think it is?”</p><p>“Huh?” the kid’s teacher was brought out of his space-flight induced daydream as his partner in flying signaled to one of the many screens in the dash panel. It was flashing, as if receiving a message of some sort. “That’s… Tallahassee, is it an audio message? Can we hear it?”</p><p>“I’m not certain,” Gustav Tallahassee responded, but began to work the computer regardless. “Only one way to find out, let’s see if I can play in on our system.”</p><p>As he worked, both pilots pressed a keen ear at the monitors, hoping to hear at least some part of the elusive supposed message they had just received. As they did so, instead of any message, they began to hear more and more of the kids just chatting the time away. From Kanata’s boasting, Luca’s teasing, Aries’ laughter, Quitterie’s annoyance and Funicia’s one-girl ventriloquist show with her robotic puppet “Beego”; it was quite evidently clear that no message in space could get though the sound barrier these loudmouths created whenever they got riled up.</p><p>Yamanobe felt a vein pop out of the sheer stress of it all. Well, time to be a teacher, proper.</p><p>“Children!” he instructed, so loud that even Tallahassee straightened himself out of reflex. The members of Group B5 all stopped in their tracks, mid-sentences most of them, slowly cocking their heads towards their seemingly angry teacher. “We seem to be in the middle of receiving a message through an emergency channel,” he explained to them, the authority clear in his tone. “If you’d all please calm yourselves a bit, maybe Tallahassee and I could decipher it and make sure that nothing is a miss.”</p><p>“Message?” Aries quickly asked, completely failing at the “be quiet” part of the order she had just received.</p><p>“You mean like a distress call!” Luca quickly exclaimed, edging closer to the bridge, likewise failing just as Aries had.</p><p>“Are people in danger?!” Kanata shouted even louder, which caused their teacher to simply want to fail them all right then and there. Instead, he took a deep breath and signed.</p><p>“Unlikely,” Charce seemingly read his teacher’s mind and answered for him, surprising the elder man as the youth turned to Kanata, and by extension, the rest. “The route between our station and McPa is heavily studied and investigated, if it were a distress call we would not be the first to pick up on it.”</p><p>“I see,” Kanata replied.</p><p>“That’s a good thing,” Aries added, “We wouldn’t want people to be hurt!”</p><p>“Please,” Quitterie scoffed, “What do you lot think we are, space heroes? We are only going out here to get some academy credits, nothing more. It’s not like we are in any way properly trained to handle such a-”</p><p>The sentence was cut short when a massive screeching noise echoed throughout the ship, instinctively causing everyone to cover their ears in pain.</p><p>“Ah, my damn bloody ears!” Beego cursed.</p><p>“Funi!” Quitterie scolded her kid sister, who was quick to pout.</p><p>“It wasn’t me!” she defended. “It was Beego!”</p><p>“The puppet read my mind too, I think,” Luca added, rubbing his head.</p><p>“Is everyone okay?!” Kanata quickly asked, grabbing his nearest companion and screaming into his ear. “Are you okay?!”</p><p>“Let go of me you damn ape!” Ulgar shouted out as he shoved his “captain” away, clearly annoyed.</p><p>“I’m alright!” Aries announced, “Although my ears are still ringing. You okay?”</p><p>“Um… yes,” Yun-hua replied, having not even noticed than Aries had gotten somehow right next to her during the ensuing chaos. That girl was nimble, she noted.</p><p>“That’s a relief,” Charce added, his attention focusing on the screen before them. “Any idea what that was all about?”</p><p>“…Perhaps you observations were a bit premature,” Zack offered, his attention shifting from a half glancing Charce to a clearly distressed Yamanobe. “Correct me if I’m wrong professor, but that, does indeed look like a distress signal.”</p><p>All the other students followed Zack’s line of sight, and on the screen before them, a very poorly translated message appeared. They could barely make most of it out, but several key words could be read: “hurt”, “crew”, “pilot”, and, worse of all, “HELP”, all in capital letters, and repeated no less than five times in what seemed to be a short message of very few sentences.</p><p>“Yamanobe, this…” Tallahassee began, his eyes wide with shock.</p><p>“Allow me a moment, this can’t be right,” Yamanobe said, as he began to work on the panels. He quickly activated their head operating system: the so-called “Electronic Workstation Architecture”, or EWA for short. Before any of the kids could ask, the system went online as it announced itself through the intercoms of the ship, a feminine sounding robotic voice, both pleasant and unnerving in equal lengths.</p><p>“I AM ONLINE,” the system announced. “HOW MAY I BE OF ASSISTANCE?”</p><p>“EWA,” Yamanobe ordered. “Why is the message we received not properly translated? We can barely read it, and any attempt at listening to it just produces a loud noise which we cannot decipher.”</p><p>“SCANNING…” EWA replied. “MESSAGE SCAN COMPLETE. MESSAGE HAD BEEN TRANSLATED AS BEST AS OUR SYSTEMS WILL ALLOW. LANGUAGE NOT DETECTED ON ANY OF OUR SYSTEMS, WORDS TRANSLATED HAVE AN 85% CHANCE OF BEING CORRECT, FOLLOWING A SYSTEMATIC REPETITION OF SEVERAL SOUNDS AND TONES USED WITHIN THE MESSAGE ITSELF.”</p><p>“Who’s that lady?” Funicia asked her elder sister, who just shrugged.</p><p>“It’s our central computer program,” Zack offered Funicia an answer, which caused Quitterie to scoff in his direction. Last thing they needed to do was baby Funicia anymore than they had already.</p><p>“Yes, the motherboard of the ship, so to speak,” Charce clarified, in simpler terms.</p><p>“That’s so cool!” Kanata announced.</p><p>“You are way too easily swayed, you know?” Luca noted. “Did you just forget about the creepy message we are trying to decipher?”</p><p>“Who’s we?” Quitterie angrily asked. “We are headed to McPa. If our teacher here wants to go pretend he’s Captain Kirk, he can do so after he drops us off.”</p><p>“I’m honestly shocked you know of Star Trek,” Charce added, which earned him a glare from the blonde, twin-tailed girl.</p><p>“We used to watch reruns together,” Zack commented, very matter-of-factly. “It was in fact one of our very favorite-”</p><p>“That’s not an important topic of conversation! Nobody cares!” Quitterie threw one of her boots at his head to shut Zack up.</p><p>“Wait, serious question! Who’s your favorite, Kirk or Picard?!” Kanata asked, in the most serious tone they had all heard him use.</p><p>“I said nobody cares, so don’t care!” Quitterie threw her other boot at him.</p><p>“Hey mommy! Are people in danger then?” Aries asked EWA, causing her teacher to feel a bit embarrassed in her behalf.</p><p>“Just because she’s a motherboard doesn’t make her your actual mother!” he corrected, but Aries just offered a dopey smile in response.</p><p>“COORDINATES LOCKED,” EWA announced, their planned route showing up on the main monitor, before it was redirected towards the source of the message. “DISTRESS SIGNAL LOCATION FOUND. THREE HOURS, TWO MINUTES OF ADDITIONAL TRAVEL REQUIRED. PERMISSION TO ALTER OUR COURSE.”</p><p>As soon as EWA finished, the class erupted into differing factions about what to do, some like Kanata and Aries wanting to immediately go and help the people out, while others like Quitterie and Ulgar wanting none of that. They began to argue back and forth, most of them anyway, as both Zack and Yun-hua remained silent on the matter.</p><p>“Yamanobe, we should probably just-” Tallahassee began, but was interrupted by Yamanobe.</p><p>“How far is it to McPa?” he asked.</p><p>“…Thirty-nine minutes,” Tallahassee replied, then added, “If we go left, well, theoretically left I mean.”</p><p>“Meaning that if we take the kids to McPa first, it would be almost forty minutes there, and then forty minutes just to get back at this very spot, to then take that over nine hour trip,” Yamanobe concluded, and Tallahassee could only offer a nod. “…I’m not sure we have enough fuel for such a trip. Twelve hours, that’s as much as we usually carry. If we go directly to help these people, we can almost, almost make it there and back. Or at least, be left without fuel minutes away from the station, were help is all but guaranteed.”</p><p>“But, damn it Yamanobe, we’re not Colonial Space Marines! This isn’t a job for this gloried flying school bus!” Tallahassee protested, thinking that it be much better to simply cancel the trip outright and alert the authorities back home, and let the professionals handle such a rescue.</p><p>“We still have that responsibility, and you know it,” Yamanobe responded, his tone sounding a final as it could. “Just like ships on the ocean have the responsibility to rescue their fellow marine vessels, so do we. That’s how humanity has survived for so long, helping one another,” he told his partner, even if it sounded he was actually trying to convince himself. “Children!” he announced again, turning to the group. “I may be a pilot, but I am also your teacher, so consider your special assignment altered! You are hereby assigned to assist in a search-and-possibly-rescue operation! We do this, success or failure on our part, you will all get your credits regardless!”</p><p>“Huh?!” the group collectively blurted out.</p><p>“So we just go pick these people up and we get a free pass?” Luca asked, feeling excited all the sudden.</p><p>“As if it be that easy you idiot,” Ulgar insulted, which caused the slender boy to frown at him. “Didn’t you hear how we have just barely enough fuel to be left stranded near our home?”</p><p>“Well, if the laws of physics are anything to go by,” Charce added. “We could simply push the ship in the right direction and allow the vessel to “float” towards our station.”</p><p>“Yeah, and crash land right into it!” Quitterie exclaimed.</p><p>“It is a possibility,” Zack offered, as the bootless Quitterie had to resort to smacking him with her hand to get him to shut up.</p><p>“We’re going to crash?” a worried Funicia asked, as she and her hand puppet turned to a comforting hand that had been placed on her shoulder.</p><p>“No, sweetie, don’t worry about stuff like that!” Aries assured, despite all the negativism she could outright feel in the air around them. “We’re just going to go pick some people up, and come right back home. These ships are state of the art, and even if our objective is different, I’m still going to take care of you,” Aries told Funicia, as she bopped the little girl on the nose with her index finger, causing her to let out a soft giggle.</p><p>“You promise?” Funicia asked, feeling at ease, so much so that she never noticed her elder sister looking her way, her expression mixed.</p><p>“I promise!” Aries exclaimed, smiling at the adorable little girl.</p><p>“Cross your heart?” Beego asked, for once his tone perfectly mirroring Funicia’s, even if his voice didn’t.</p><p>“…And hope to die,” Aries replied.</p><p>-0-</p><p>The following three hours of space travel went a lot slower for the crew than their previous ones, owning to the fact that despite their best efforts, none of them were entirely too sure about how adequate a decision this had been. They knew, they all knew, that just the mere possibility of being able to save someone was a noble cause in on itself, but it didn’t make the supposed rescue any less unnerving. There was not much record of manned space flight to this region, and while it was technically charted, it had never been considered a candidate for any planet to house sustainable life on it. </p><p>“DESTINATION REACHED,” EWA stated. “SOURCE OF DISTRESS CALL IN SIGHT.”</p><p>“It’s that the planet?” Aries asked, looking at the screen showing their destination.</p><p>“…I think it’s pointing to one of the three moons,” Zack noted, slightly unsure himself.</p><p>“EWA,” Kanata instructed, “Is one of those moons our objective?”</p><p>EWA remained silent. All the students glanced at the blushing Kanata, snickering.</p><p>“…You know it’s set up so as to only answer to the pilots, right?” Yamanobe explained, trying his best not to snicker along with the class at Kanata’s display. “I know you want to be Captain and all that, but please try to follow orders properly for now. Lives could be at stake… and that goes for the rest of you as well.”</p><p>“Aye, aye, sir!” they all replied, but who said it sincerely and who said it mockingly was a bit hard for their teacher to tell.</p><p>“Very well,” he continued, clearing his throat as he turned his attention to EWA. “EWA, please zoom in to our destination and possible landing spot.”</p><p>“UNDERSTOOD,” EWA complied, as she zoomed the camera into one of the moons, just like Zack had theorized. “LANDING AREA FOUND. SHOWING ON SCREEN NOW.”</p><p>“Very well then,” Yamanobe stated, as he instructed the group to sit back onto their stations and set their helmets back on. Both he and Tallahassee manned the ship personally, preparing it for landing on the nearby moon. It took them all several minutes to do so properly, as despite EWA’s assistance, the moon itself had very few spots where even a ship as small as theirs could land properly.</p><p>But in time, they did, and with a loud hit that caused the girls and Kanata to shriek, the ship had been successfully “parked”.</p><p>“Sorry,” Yamanobe said, his voice now being carried to his crew by the speakers on their suits. “That landing was a little rougher than we intended…”</p><p>“A little?” Tallahassee added, scoffing at the notion.</p><p>“Why, yes, anyways…” Yamanobe continued, blushing slightly. “Here we are! EWA, please register our coordinates, and see if we can get either a message back home, or somehow communicate with the source of the distress signal.”</p><p>“UNDERSTOOD,” EWA replied. “CURRENT COORDINATES…”</p><p>EWA seemed to stop momentarily, a rarity for such a state of the art program. The kids looked on, still silent, their minds racing with vastly different scenarios each. But then, the program began to speak again, and gave them their current location, which for reasons none of them knew, gave them all shivers.</p><p>“…LV-426.”</p><p>“Lovely…” Yamanobe commented sarcastically, as he took in his new coordinates, while EWA began to try and get a message across, to any party that would pick up. “Anyways, we’ve got work to do, Group B5, your assignment starts now!”</p><p>-0-</p><p>“Since when do we have one of these on board?!” Kanata exclaimed, as his eyes went wide at the sight of their secret “twelfth” passenger. The rest of the group, though not as surprised, were still unaware of their fellow companion.</p><p>“You always know a Working Joe,” the rubber face synthetic greeted the company’s would-be motto for the product line, with just as much glee as EWA would. As in, none.</p><p>“You know, seeing one up close,” Quitterie commented, “They are kinda creepy.”</p><p>“Some people prefer the Working Joes to the more human-like synthetics sold by the Weyland Corporation,” Zack mentioned, to which Quitterie quickly shook her head.</p><p>“No way!” she exclaimed. “Have you seen their older David 6 models? Quite the hunky dude if you ask me.”</p><p>“Too bad they’re probably as anatomically correct as a Ken doll,” Luca added, winking at Quitterie, “Imma right?”</p><p>“As if that’s what I’m thinking off, you little creep,” she insulted, but Luca took it in stride and merely laughed along.</p><p>“So what is our Blowing Job gonna do?” Aries asked.</p><p>“It’s called a Working Joe, please don’t make it weird, and it’s going to survey the area for us,” their teacher corrected and explained, to which a still somewhat confused Aries nodded innocently.</p><p>“So we’re sending the robot to do our work for us,” Ulgar scoffed at the idea. “Some space explorers we turned out to be.”</p><p>“It is the smart thing to do,” Charce defended. “We can never be too careful. Besides, think of it as an easy “A” if we manage to complete our task without so much as lifting a finger.”</p><p>“But that’s boring!” Kanata whined. “Can’t I go explore with old Carl here?”</p><p>“No,” was the response he got. “And don’t call it Carl!”</p><p>“What is his name anyways?” Aries asked, and their teacher felt like accompanying the Working Joe himself to get away from them all.</p><p>“It’s just Working Joe; Model 161 if you want to be precise.”</p><p>“Carl it is then!” Kanata announced, and the rest of the group nodded, apparently the first thing they could all agree on.</p><p>So with both co-pilots in their seats, eyes on the screens which connected their synthetic to EWA, and all the kids and the puppet pressed against them trying to see what was going on, much too close for anyone’s comfort, “Carl” was sent on his marry way to explore LV-426.</p><p>The kids wished him well, and all the robot replied upon being given his instructions was an “I’ll be back,” or something to that extent.</p><p>“We might have to turn off the artificial gravity to conserve fuel,” Tallahassee mentioned, but Yamanobe just shook his head.</p><p>“Let’s give our “friend” a few more minutes, we have yet to locate the source of the signal.”</p><p>The few more minutes became fifteen, down to the second, when EWA broke the deafening silence. “LOCATION ADQUIRED.”</p><p>“Yes!” Kanata cheered, then added, “That’s good, right?”</p><p>“Most likely,” their teacher replied, looking at the monitors, and then he felt his soul leave his body for a moment. “…It can’t be, is that…?”</p><p>“…It’s…” Aries began, her eyes just as wide as everyone else’s.</p><p>“…a ship!” Kanata finished, clenching his fist and smiling triumphantly despite the sense of uneasiness that abounded.</p><p>“…That’s too big to be one of ours,” Tallahassee commented. “There’s just no way.”</p><p>“Weyland, perhaps?” Yamanobe offered, even as doubt lingered.</p><p>“What? No!” Tallahassee rebutted. “I’m not talking ours as in what company is behind it. I’m talking ours as if manmade. Just look at the size of that thing!”</p><p>“Wait, are you guys saying-?” Kanata began, but got caught off.</p><p>“You can’t seriously be suggesting that that is an extraterrestrial spacecraft, or are you?” Charce asked, his eyes glued to the vessel on their screens.</p><p>“Great, so we’re saving aliens now,” Ulgar snarked.</p><p>“Ah! That’s so cool… and creepy!” Luca added.</p><p>“Z-Zack…?” Quitterie began, her voice trembling slightly, but as she turned towards the boy beside her she could see his features tightening as he contemplated the scenario before them.</p><p>“Creatures foreign to our planet are not a new discovery, we do know there is life in this universe,” he said. “But, not once has humanity met a being on our intellectual level. That they could build a craft; that they could travel the stars; and even release a distress call for assistance… This would be, in a sense, far above our pay-grade, so to speak.”</p><p>“Oh, come now,” Kanata argued. “There’s been plenty of proof of alien encounters back on Earth, haven’t they?”</p><p>“Not any which have been scientifically proven,” Charce offered.</p><p>“What about incident in Val Verde?” Kanata asked, remembering hearing about a very old news report his teacher told them about way back when.</p><p>“That was an explosion in the mist of guerrilla warfare,” Charce replied. “I know the rumors, but what I mentioned is still in effect, it was never scientifically proven to involve aliens of any-”</p><p>“SIGNAL LOST.”</p><p>The children stopped their conversations when they heard the announcement from EWA, all of them glancing at the screen and then at their teacher, who had a very worried look on his face.</p><p>“The Working Joe… Carl, as you kids call it… we can’t get a reading on it…”</p><p>-0-</p><p>“This is ludicrous Yamanobe,” Tallahassee told the man as the former stood before the blast doors leading to LV-426. “I say forget the robot and forget the message, we can’t just go in there looking for God knows what?”</p><p>“I agree with the fat man!” Quitterie quickly added, which caused Tallahassee to glare at the girl, but she paid him no mind.</p><p>“Lives are at stake, we do what we must do,” Yamanobe answered firmly. He then turned to the group. “Since we lost contact with… Carl, which I believe may be the ship we saw interfering with its signal very much the same way it was interfering with the message, we’ve got no choice but to go in ourselves and investigate. Contrary to my co-pilot’s requests, I cannot guarantee we would be able to make it back home without the Working Joe serving as our support on our ship. It’s much too risky. Worst case scenario, we look around, get Carl back, and if we see nothing, we return home. Like I said, success or failure, your credits are already guaranteed.”</p><p>“Oh, yeah, unknown planet exploration, here we come!” Kanata cheered.</p><p>“There’s that we stuff again,” Quitterie argued. “Are you seriously taking us along with you!?”</p><p>“Some of you at least, yes,” their teacher replied.</p><p>“And why would that be?” Ulgar pressured.</p><p>“Because Tallahassee has to stay and man the ship, its protocol,” Yamanobe replied again, but the students did not sound convinced.</p><p>“Why us, is what I believe they are asking,” Charce explained.</p><p>“Because it’s dark out there!” Yamanobe replied, far too honestly for the students liking. They all looked at him with sheer disgust, most of them anyway, and he felt his entire body begin to sweat. Still, they said nothing else. Well, most of them.</p><p>“…Sad excuse of a man you turned out to be, you wimp,” ten year old Funicia told the teacher through her puppet. The man had never felt so ashamed in his life.</p><p>After being forced to pick up his dignity from the floor, Yamanobe explained what it was they were going to do. A group, comprised of himself and five of the students, were going to go in, do one quick look-around, find Carl, and head back, carrying the android if they needed to, hence the need for more people. Also, if they just happened to be able to rescue someone, then even better, but for now, their objective was getting their android and getting the hell out of there, message be damned.</p><p>All that remained was which five students would go.</p><p>“You need five, then take off those dorky sunglasses and take a good look!” Quitterie exclaimed, extending her hand and pointing towards the males of the group. “There you go, five boys in total, take them and go play space explorers all you want!”</p><p>“Heh,” Ulgar snickered, “So it’s not sexist when it’s convenient for you, huh princess?”</p><p>“Oh don’t give me that crap!” Quitterie argued back. “There’s no way we can carry that damn android back here. Look at me, then look at our so-called Captain over there,” she pointed to still smiling Kanata, the only one amongst them eagerly volunteering to go. “The guy’s built like a Blade Runner, he could probably carry that junk of metal back in here by himself! Of course, taking a good look at you, I can see why you wouldn’t be much help to them.”</p><p>“What was that?!” Ulgar growled, but Aries quickly got in-between the quarreling duo.</p><p>“Why don’t we pick straws, that way it’s completely fair who goes and who stays?” she suggested, and both Quitterie and Ulgar turned their glares her way, as she gulped and sheepishly laughed out of nervousness.</p><p>“Yeah, let’s do that,” their teacher decided, quickly taking seven straws from the food stall and breaking the tip of four of them. “Since Kanata volunteered, he’s going, and of course, little Funicia stays behind. The four straws that are broken are the ones that get to tag along, got it?”</p><p>They all answered with a groan, but relented nonetheless. They knew the longer the stalled, the less fuel they would have, so they needed to get this done with quickly.</p><p>So they drew the straws. Two teams would be divided, the five that would stay on the ship, and the six that would enter the mysterious spacecraft.</p><p>“Oh you’ve got to be kidding me!” Quitterie screamed as she drew the short straw.</p><p>“…I’m staying, it seems,” Zack muttered, drawing a long straw.</p><p>“Yeah, I’ve got a short one!” Aries exclaimed. “…Wait, what did that mean again?”</p><p>“It means you are probably going to die,” Ulgar replied, smirking at his long straw.</p><p>“Now, now, don’t be mean. We’ll manage somehow,” Charce spoke up, also having drawn a short straw.</p><p>Yun-hua said nothing, yet her eyes had already become filled with tears. In her hands was the last short straw, indicating her upcoming trip into the unknown. She gulped, trying to keep her hands from trembling, but before she could say anything, she felt her straw get pulled away as another was placed on her hand, this one unbroken. </p><p>“…Why?” was all she could whisper.</p><p>“Shh…” Luca motioned to her as he flicked the short straw through his fingers, one finger over his mouth to signal her to keep quiet. With a wink and a smirk, the petite boy turned to the rest. “Guess I’m the last unlucky one, huh? Oh well.”</p><p>So the teams were set.</p><p>The exploration group, guided by their teacher Danio Yamanobe, was made up by self-proclaimed “Captain” Kanata Hoshijima, airheaded Aries Spring, severely reluctant Quitterie Raffaeli, somewhat bemused Charce Lecroix and “did-I-really-do-what-think-I-did” Luca Esposito.</p><p>The other group, manning the ship, led by the co-pilot Gustav Tallahassee, were ever pensive Zack Walker, severely relieved Ulgar Zweig, severely concerned Yun-hua Lu, and somewhat oblivious to it all Funicia Raffaeli with her hand puppet Beego.</p><p>With no time to spare, the exploration group found themselves out of their ship, standing on foreign land within the horizon of LV-426. The six members began their move forwards, towards the ship where they had lost contact with their Carl.</p><p>“Everyone can hear me clearly?” Yamanobe asked.</p><p>“Loud and clear sir!” Kanata replied, doing a hand salute to the teacher but forgetting his attire and smacking his hand against his one helmet in the process.</p><p>“We are so going to buy it on this rock,” Quitterie lamented, her gaze fixed downwards.</p><p>“We are breaming with hope, it seems,” Charce added sarcastically, as he tried to make sense of the way of the land. It was honestly too damn dark to see anything, even with the high powered flashlights they had been equipped with.</p><p>“I was expecting gravity to be, you know, a little bit diff-” Luca began, but tripped and almost landed on his face, if not for Kanata’s quick reflexes on catching the poor boy mid-fall. “Ah, it’s so dark I can’t even see my own two feet!”</p><p>“You can’t even make out the stars from here,” Aries noted, her gaze upwards. The others paused and stared up, and just like the pink haired girl had said, the stars they could all clearly see from outer space were nigh invisible once on the surface of this moon.</p><p>“That’s not creepy at all,” Luca commented.</p><p>“Let’s get that stupid ass robot and go back, now!” Quitterie ordered, shrieking into the communicators causing the crew to squirm.</p><p>“For once, I agree,” a slightly unnerved Yamanobe replied, as he pointed his flashlight towards a nearby entrance to the large ship before them. “We are at the entrance, or what we presume is an entrance at least. Mighty big if I may add. Tallahassee, do you read me?”</p><p>“Loud and clear,” the man back at the ship responded, as the group heard him from their connected devices. “Emphasis on the loud part, quite a set of lungs you got on you little missy.”</p><p>Quitterie just stuck her tongue out at the nothingness before her.</p><p>“Tallahassee, I’ll keep you posted, just reply whenever you hear me so that we know we have not lost our own signal,” Yamanobe instructed.</p><p>“Roger that,” was the firm reply, as the crew continued their trek.</p><p>“Guys…” Charce called out, having gotten a bit further ahead. He pointed his flashlight slightly upwards, adding, “You might want to check this out.”</p><p>He shown the light over what appeared to be a machine of some sort, with tubes connecting all over. The group approached the figure slowly, carefully, their eyes wide at the sight. It was huge, clearly over fifteen feet in length, or maybe even more so. It seemed to house a bridge like structure, to the ship they’d deduce, with a seat in the middle of it all. Seated within it, was what looked to be a mummified being, taller than any human could ever hope to be, with a long trunk like structure protruding from its “face”, if one could call it that. Whether it was organic or not, they couldn’t ever hope to tell. </p><p>“What the hell is that thing?!” Quitterie shrieked, almost losing her balance on the platform they were standing on.</p><p>“No way, is that an alien creature, I mean, like a smart one?” Kanata asked, shining his own light across its corpse.</p><p>“Intelligence is subjective,” Charce added, also examining the creature. “But, I’ve never heard of anything like it before.”</p><p>“Do not touch anything,” their teacher instructed, as he stepped towards the creature, noticing a giant hole near the chest cavity. “Whatever it was, it didn’t look like it died peacefully. It was, like it was blown up from the inside.”</p><p>“And why the hell are we still here?!” Quitterie asked, waving her flashlight around like mad.</p><p>“Poor thing,” Aries said, as she took a look at the creatures face, or what was left of it. “It must be so scary, to die alone like this. Were we too late? Was he, or she, the one who was calling out to us?”</p><p>“Considering the amount of fossilization on this corpse, I say we’re very late,” Charce commented, studying the creature as much as he could despite the dim lighting.</p><p>“But, wait, shouldn’t Carl be here?” Kanata asked, moving his flashlight to look at his nearby surroundings, but failing to notice their missing synthetic companion.</p><p>“Indeed, he should be,” Yamanobe agreed. “Hey, Tallahassee, can you still hear me?”</p><p>“Not clearly, but you’re not out of range yet,” Tallahassee responded, and his own connection sounded a bit off, but not by much.</p><p>“Strange, our Carl should have reported this creature on sight, and it should have still had a signal when it did.”</p><p>“Maybe “Carl” was smart enough to high-tail it outta here the first moment he couuuuu-!” Quitterie had been saying before she felt a hand grab her by the rear and pull her downwards, causing the blonde to shriek as she fell on what felt like a slide and ended up several feet below them, screaming at the top of her lungs and striking her would-be assailant with the tip of her flashlight. “Help! I’m being attacked! Help!”</p><p>“Ouch! Stop! Hey, it’s me! Ouch!” Luca quickly spoke up as he covered his body from the hits, as the flashlight sent waves all across his helmet and almost gave the kid a migraine.</p><p>“You!” Quitterie practically growled. “What’s the big idea of grabbing my butt and pulling me down you perv!?”</p><p>“I wasn’t trying to grab your smelly butt!” he defended. “I tripped and grabbed you by accident!”</p><p>“Don’t worry guys! I’m coming!” they both heard Kanata scream out the top of his lungs, before they felt the guy land on top of them with a massive thud, almost crushing the two. “Relax, I’m here to-”</p><p>“Get off me you meathead!” Quitterie argued as she kicked the dive-bomber extraordinaire himself squarely in the abdomen, knocking the wind out of him and sending him off the duo.</p><p>“-…save you,” he weakly finished, clenching onto his now aching body.</p><p>“Are you kids alright?” their teacher asked, peeking downwards towards the three as he shown a light out at them.</p><p>“Yes sir!” Kanata confirmed.</p><p>“Somehow…” Luca replied</p><p>“Do I look okay to you!?” Quitterie outright barked.</p><p>Charce pointed his own flashlight downwards, noticing how this part of the ship seemed to have two levels to it. “Perhaps that’s our answer right there,” he commented, as Aries turned her attention from the trio towards her blond companion. “Maybe our Carl went down there somehow, he could have fallen as well, just like our friends demonstrated.”</p><p>“Technically only I fell,” Luca commented, shining his flashlight around his new surroundings. “I sorta dragged Quitterie down with me, and Kanata dive bombed his way down here.”</p><p>“Maybe not my smartest move,” Kanata admitted.</p><p>“You think?!” Quitterie shot back.</p><p>“Alright, keep calm guys,” their teacher instructed. “I’ll scale down the wall and meet you three down there,” he said, then pointed to Aries and Charce. “You two try to find a safe way to get down there, so that we may get back up.”</p><p>“Roger!” Aries quickly saluted, also smacking her hand against her own helmet. She proceeded to ignore that little oopsie. “Let’s get to it Chance!”</p><p>“…It’s Charce, actually, with an “r”.”</p><p>As the two kept exploring, the teacher slowly tried to get down, but ended up losing his grip and tumbling down like a fool, only to end up in Kanata’s arm as the young man effortlessly caught him, princess style.</p><p>“Don’t worry Teach, you’re safe!”</p><p>“…Please put me down.”</p><p>As they all looked around, trying to find a way up, Luca noticed something out of the corner of his eye. He turned his attention towards it, shining his flashlight onto an object he was unfamiliar with. It seemed to be some sort of plant, shaped like an egg, seemingly just as fossilized as the corpse above them. It was freaky looking, and it seemed to, despite its age, still look somewhat… juicy.</p><p>‘What is that thing?’ the boy asked himself in his thoughts. ‘Was the top always spread like that? I could have sworn… Nah, there’s no way it could move.’</p><p>“Found something Luca?” Kanata asked, turning to the boy in question.</p><p>“Just a plant, I think, I doubt this thing is what we’re trying to save though,” Luca replied, as he walked towards the “plant”, reaching near its base and lighting it with his flashlight. It gave up as uneasy feeling, but he wasn’t sure why.</p><p>“Luca, get away from that thing,” Quitterie said, as she waved at him from a bit further back, away from anything weird. “You don’t know if it’s safe.”</p><p>“Yes, don’t touch anything,” Yamanobe stressed, but stopped himself from getting closer to the boy. Out of the corner of his eyes, he also saw something, and he turned to shine a light on that, just as Luca reached the “plant”, and slowly, carefully, directed his flashlight towards the dark and slimy interior of the egg-like structure…</p><p>“…There’s nothing in it,” Luca commented, seeing how the thing was empty, and took a breath of relief. “Not that surprising really, considering how old everything here is. Still, I wonder how one lone plant can just grow here?”</p><p>“Actually, I don’t think it’s just one,” Kanata muttered, as he pointed his flashlight beyond were Luca was standing and, slowly, revealed countless of other things just like the one Luca had looked into.</p><p>“Oh my God,” Quitterie spoke up, as she joined Kanata and Luca as they all looked at the mass amount of eggs scattered throughout. “There must be hundreds.”</p><p>“You think this has anything to do with our message?” Luca asked, eyes still wide. “Or maybe with our missing Carl? Maybe he’s into gardening and harvesting weird space eggs?”</p><p>“Could be, hey Teach, you think we should carry on our search in this direction?” Kanata asked, but as he turned around, he was met by silence and darkness. “…Teach?”</p><p>There was nobody there.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Twelfth Passenger</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank you guys so much for reading! Want more? Check me out on FF.net for more updates and stories!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Careful with your step,” Charce told her, as he held out his hand to assist her in traversing a rather disjointed area within the ship they found themselves exploring. She followed suit, taking a small bounce from her location in order to reach his. She then offered him her thanks and a bright smile which he had grown to miss. He shook his head; not here, not now.</p><p>“This place is very hard to walk through,” Aries noted, her tone sounding somewhat nervous still, but never losing that cheerfulness she always carried.</p><p>“Indeed,” Charce replied, “Seems our would-be extraterrestrial friends did not have the safest of landings on this moon. The ship’s interiors are insanely damaged, too much for it not to be the results of a crash… Then again, with how old everything seems, they could have been here a while, so maybe this is simply time’s harsh effects on display.”</p><p>“That’s so freaky…” Aries commented, as she scanned her current surroundings with what little light her flashlight could offer her. The dark corridors of this unexplored ship were daunting, she’d note, as the darkness itself seemed to swallow up what little lighting they tried to use. Still, for as frightening an experience as it was, she knew they needed to find their robotic friend Carl. “Charce, I think there’s another tunnel around here. Do you think we should search there?”</p><p>She looked to the side, awaiting a response from the young man she had grown to consider to be very dependable, yet, he didn’t answer. He was still there, a bit distant from her, scanning his own surroundings with his flashlight, but he wasn’t looking her way. Was he ignoring her?</p><p>“Charce…?” she voiced, unsure, then her eyes widened. She realized she was not hearing a single sound from him despite the fact that she could see his lips moving.</p><p>‘Is it my system that’s not working?’ she pondered, motioning to the controls on her suit’s wrist, touching the panel to see if she had muted herself or something. She tried checking the channel, but she was on the correct frequency. She then turned it towards the group’s frequency, in the hopes of at least hearing the others, but nothing but silence could be heard. Kanata, Quitterie, Luca and their teacher had all gone downwards, where they were ordered to go, yet she couldn’t hear them anymore either. Not them, not the pilot back on the ship, not even Charce who was mere feet from her.</p><p>Feeling a sudden sense of dread, she then motioned to the volume settings, noticing that she wasn’t muted at all. Still, she tried raising the volume, despite the little pop-up warning that told her that raising it any higher could damage her hearing. Such a warning was of no use if she couldn’t hear anything to start with.</p><p>Nothing.</p><p>She felt her body grow cold. Why wasn’t it working? Was it busted? In her frustration she slammed the panel a bit with her palm, not the brightest move she’d admit but maybe she could fix it like if it were a very old television set. However, instead of getting any of her friends back online with her, she got an ear-piercing loud noise that echoed throughout her helmet, causing the young pink-haired girl to shriek and fall down on her bottom, unable to even cover her own ears since the helmet prevented her from doing so.</p><p>“Too loud! Too loud!” she cried out, sitting on the dark corridor with her ears still ringing. ‘That hurt so much I thought I had gone deaf…”</p><p>Then, if out of nothing else but instinct, she glanced upwards, from her seated position, towards her companion. Charce was still looking about, not very far from her, but in the resulting radio-silence he had not noticed her failed attempts at communication. But…</p><p>…above him she saw something else. She couldn’t see it clearly, nor could she see what it was even supposed to be. There was just, something, seeming to hover above Charce, but in the dark that surrounded them, she couldn’t even tell from where exactly. Was there a higher plane than the one they were on and it stood there? Was it clinging onto a wall? Was it even something at all, or just another part of the ship?</p><p>“Charce!” she said even if she knew he wouldn’t hear it. So, without thinking, she got up, and outright ran towards the blonde boy. She couldn’t tell what it was that was hovering over him, or if it was even something at all, but her fear took over, and she didn’t want to risk it. He couldn’t hear her? Fine, he could still damn well feel her, right?</p><p>“-inner machinations of this place are so fasc-” the boy had been saying moments before, in his mind still in mid-conversation with Aries, until he was stopped mid-sentence by a sudden full body tackle from the girl in question, toppling both of them over and sending them rolling through a corridor at an impressive pace.</p><p>“What the-?!” the now surprised and genuinely spooked Charce blurted out, for a moment his mind entertaining the thought that he had been attacked by an unfriendly alien specimen. Instead, he found himself on the floor, with a very scared-looking Aries screaming at him, yet, he couldn’t hear a word she was saying. “A-Aries? What, is something wrong?”</p><p>“There’s something in here with us!” she tried to tell him, but the moment she saw his own lips move to tell her something and she did not hear him, she confirmed he wasn’t hearing her either. She scrambled to get back on her feet, trying to think of a way to communicate with him before it was too late. In the corner of her eye she saw something on the floor, close to where they had landed. It was small, but it did not look as worn down as the rest of this ship. Was it the reason she couldn’t communicate well, a piece of her equipment that had broken off? She shook her head. Even if it was, she did not have the skills to fix it, so it was a moot point.</p><p>“Are you okay?” he asked, then paused, noticing it too. “…Can you not hear me? I can’t seem to hear you at all.”</p><p>Aries frowned, then, suddenly, grabbed Charce by the helmet and pressed her own against his, her eyes staring into his very soul. He said nothing, just stared back, eyes wide. Then she pointed backwards, to the point he had been standing on moments before she pulled a Kanata and dive-bombed into him. She then pointed upwards, above the spot where he had been, and made the spookiest face she could muster. She bared her teeth as if they were fangs and moved her fingers as if they were tentacles.</p><p>‘Was there something there…?’ Charce wondered, as he took hold of Aries’ hands and give the girl a firm press and nodded at her. Then he spoke, as slowly as he could, so that she could hopefully read his lips. “Was? Something? There?”</p><p>She nodded, and he felt his blood freeze.</p><p>He quickly took her by the hand and pulled both her and himself away from that spot, walking down the corridor they had fallen into and away from the spot Aries had been pointing at. She quickly followed suit, keeping up with his pace as they both began to run from that spot, into the darkness, away from the unseen threat that seemed to linger above them.</p><p>“Guys, we have a situation here,” Charce spoke up as he manually changed his frequency to that of the others. “While we’re not entirely sure, there seems to be something else in here. Might be what has caused our Carl to go-”</p><p>What he heard from the other line was not what he had been hoping for.</p><p>“-standing right there!” he heard Kanata shout out, in a tone so filled with concern that it unnerved Charce.</p><p>“I didn’t even see him move!” he heard an insanely scared Quitterie respond. The girl sounded on the verge of tears. “I had turn my attention to Luca and those stupid eggs!”</p><p>“But that couldn’t have been for more than a minute, right?” he heard Luca add, also sounding just as scared. Whatever they were talking about, it wasn’t good, and it made Charce realize just how right Aries probably was with whatever it was she had seen.</p><p>“Are you guys alright!” Charce spoke again, as loud as he could.</p><p>“Charce! That you man?” Kanata replied instantly, which relieved Charce a bit.</p><p>“Yes, what’s going on? Are any of you hurt?” he asked.</p><p>“We’re alright, but-” Luca tried, but he was quickly cut off.</p><p>“Our teacher just went and outright vanished!” Quitterie screamed. “He was right here! And now he’s gone! He isn’t even answering!”</p><p>“And he left his flashlight behind,” Kanata added, as the sound of the young man seeming to crouch down and grab onto the flashlight could be heard. “I don’t think he left our side willingly.”</p><p>“Guys, I need you to know something,” Charce cut it. The others could feel how nervous the young man sounded, so they paused in their hysteria to listen. “Aries and I seem to have run into something. We couldn’t quite tell what it was, but whatever it was it certainly spooked Aries quite a bit. I don’t feel this place is all quite that safe.”</p><p>“You think?!” Quitterie blasted.</p><p>“Then we move back,” Kanata ordered. “We regroup and try to work a plan of action once we’re back on our ship. Charce, can you and Aries find your way back?”</p><p>“I believe so…” Charce responded, unsure.</p><p>“Then try your best,” Kanata replied. “Staying here any longer will put us all in danger. So let’s move!”</p><p>“Yes, let’s,” Luca agreed.</p><p>“The quicker the better!” Quitterie added.</p><p>As soon as they decided upon this, the crew began to make their way outside, as Charce turned to face Aries and signaled the plan as best as he could to her. She seemed to understand it, nodding at his little game of charades as he made a stick man with his fingers run all the way to his ship-shaped hand.</p><p>Still, it was easier said than done, as he honestly had no idea how to get out. He knew the general location of their entryway, but beyond that, not much else. Plus, these corridors all looked the same, and he couldn’t quite tell which ones they had traversed already. So he based it all on luck, hoping they would reach the outside eventually.</p><p>Then he was stopped, as Aries stopped running and held him to a sudden halt. He turned to her, confused. She gave him a serious expression, as she pointed to another corridor, signaling to it. He blinked, unsure, but she pressed on, pulling him that way.</p><p>‘Wait…’ he thought, as realization dawned on him. ‘Could she… is her memory that good… just like…?’</p><p>He shook his head. Still not the time for that. So he simply nodded, and allowed her to lead. If his hypothesis was correct, then maybe Aries would be able to have them out of this ship in no time, so long as whatever it was hunting them out there in the darkness would keep itself away from them.</p><p>-0-</p><p>Zack Walker was not used to experiencing scenarios he had not been able to account for. Ever since he was young, for as long as he could remember, his father had drilled information, statistics and logic into his brain, not leaving him room for useless data. Not leaving any room for mistakes or errors. And while it may had not been much to his own liking, to grow up feeling more like a computer program than an actual child, he couldn’t deny the benefit of always being prepared. Of always having a solution. Of never getting caught off-guard.</p><p>Then came this trip. He had prepared for every and any eventuality that could theoretically take place within the confines of McPa. Both for his sake and for the sake of the Raffaeli sisters. But this… He had not prepared for this. An S.O.S. call in the middle of nowhere. A giant ship of unknown origin. Their robotic companion going missing. Too much unexpectedness, and it made him feel something he had not experienced in a long time.</p><p>Fear. </p><p>Zack Walker was afraid. But, despite how he tried to rationalize this fear, it all came down to one factor. Not himself, as he had initially assumed. No. He was afraid for the loudmouth girl he was going to marry one day. He was afraid that at any point they were going to receive a notification from the group telling them that something had happened. It made no sense to expect the worst, but despite himself, he feared for Quitterie, and he cursed himself for not having volunteered in her place.</p><p>“Are you okay?” he heard a petite voice ask, and he realized he had been spacing out, pun probably not intended, he wasn’t sure anymore. Near his face was Beego, the ever-loveable (to some) puppet that the younger Raffaeli carried. It had not been him who spoke, though, as the little girl had voiced her thoughts herself, as she eyed Zack curiously.</p><p>“Ah, yes, I am,” he replied, forcing a smile and bending down to meet Funicia at eye-level. “Now don’t you be frightened. I am merely thinking up of alternate solutions to any problem we might come across in getting back home,” he lied. “But, more importantly, how are you feeling Funi? I hope being stuck in this ship for so many hours hasn’t made you uncomfortable.”</p><p>“Oh no,” she said as she shook her head; then Beego added, “I’m worried about Quitterie.”</p><p>Zack paused, his expression softening, noticing how Funicia herself seemed to shift her gaze towards Beego, almost looking at it as if she were surprised it had voiced her thoughts, despite that being the very appeal of the puppet. For once, it seems, Funicia had not wanted to be so blunt, and it made Zack feel even more responsible.</p><p>“Don’t neither of you worry,” he spoke earnestly. Because if there was one truth he’d say, it was this one: “If anything goes wrong, I promise I’ll make sure both you and Quitterie make it home alright. So don’t worry about anything of the sort, alright?”</p><p>“Yeah,” both the girl and the puppet answered in unison, and Zack half-wondered if Beego was even supposed to be able to do that.</p><p>“Hey.”</p><p>Zack and Funicia paused, turning to the side as they were called out by an approaching Ulgar, who carried a very serious expression, although Zack couldn’t quite decide if this was any different than how the quiet young man usually carried himself. Funicia, on the other hand, either did not notice or did not care, as she simply lit up the moment she saw him and bounced her way towards him. “Where did you go? I didn’t see you for a while,” Beego asked.</p><p>“…Just looking around,” Ulgar replied, and to Zack’s surprise, actually patted little Funi on the head softly, much to the young girl’s delight. He then shifted his attention back to Zack, his expression fierce once more. “That said, you are knowledgeable on spaceship lingo and jargon, right?”</p><p>Once again, Zack was caught off-guard by something.</p><p>“…I am,” he answered truthfully. “At least, moderately,” he added. “Is there something you have doubts about?”</p><p>“…Come with me,” Ulgar replied with an order, and as much as it irked Zack, it did sound like it was important. Or at the very least, Ulgar seemed to consider it important. So, with Ulgar leading, Zack followed, with Funicia trailing behind.</p><p>“If it’s something you believe is serious…” Zack added, making sure to keep the unaware Funicia close. “Shouldn’t you report it to our pilot? I’m sure Mr. Tallahassee is better equipped to answer any questions you have than I am.”</p><p>“He’s locked up in the communications room,” was all Ulgar offered.</p><p>“Oh? That’s probably in order to ensure better communication with the group on the outside,” Zack rationalized.</p><p>“Perhaps…” Ulgar said, but his tone did not sound at all convinced.</p><p>“Where’s the other girl who was on the ship with us?” Funicia asked looking up at Zack. Zack shifted his attention back at Funi, and raised a brow. He honestly wasn’t sure where she was, as he had lost track of where everyone was with the exception of himself and Funicia.</p><p>“She was at the bottom floor last I saw her,” Ulgar replied, surprising Zack even more. For a man who carried himself so “dark and mysteriously” he seemed to lose a lot of his edge whenever Funicia was involved. How weirdly charming, Zack noted. “But, more importantly, that’s what I mean.”</p><p>Ulgar led Zack and Funicia back onto the main deck, where they had all been seating when this expedition had begun. Ulgar then pointed towards the main screens, the very same ones that their motherboard system, E.W.A., had shown them the barely translated S.O.S. message.</p><p>Zack’s eyes widened, as in its place, was now another message. But unlike the first, this one could be understood, or at the very least, read properly.</p><p>SPECIAL ORDER 937 ((STATUS: ACTIVATED))</p><p>“That’s my question,” Ulgar said, his finger still pointing to the screen. “What the hell is Special Order 9-?”</p><p>“-an anyone hear us!” was screamed ever-so loudly through the communication equipment they all wore, noteworthy considering that none of them even had their helmets even on. It sounded fuzzy, barely audible, but he could still easily recognize her voice. And his entire world toppled over, because despite his best efforts to tell himself otherwise, his worst fears were ever-so more likely. She sounded scared beyond all belief.</p><p>“It’s Quitterie,” Funicia said, her tone also fearful, as she eyed both Zack and Ulgar.</p><p>“Why is she communicating on our channel? Shouldn’t she be calling the damn pilot?” Ulgar asked, but his anger seemed more directed at the pilot than at the scared girl, and Zack would have to agree.</p><p>“Quitterie! Can you hear me?” Zack called out, helmet forming over his head as raised the volume on his system to try and get a better read on her. “Quitterie! Are you hurt?”</p><p>“Zack?! Thank goodness, finally!” he could hear her exclaim. “We are running to the ship, a-and no one could hear us! You gotta open up! T-There’s something out here with us!”</p><p>“Wait, something?!” Zack voiced, but shook his head. That wasn’t the important thing.</p><p>“What the hell is going on?” Ulgar shouted, trying to make sense of it all, but no sooner had he done so than had Funicia began to cry. She had tried her best not to, but upon hearing her older sister in such a state and seeing the boys begin to panic, even she could tell something was very wrong. And that her sister was in danger. “Shi-I mean,” Ulgar bit his tongue, lowering himself and grabbing a hold of Funicia. “Don’t cry kid, we’ll fix this. Nothing is going to happen to your sister or the others.”</p><p>“Where are you?” Zack asked, pressing himself towards the windows of the ship, trying to catch a glimpse of any one of them.</p><p>“We are running like madmen towards the ship’s main door right now,” came a reply from Kanata, which calmed Zack just a little bit. At least Quitterie wasn’t alone.</p><p>“Are all of you safe?” Zack asked, making his way towards that very entrance. He was still a bit far from it, and he cursed the fact that he just had to be at the furthest possible point on the ship when this could have happened.</p><p>“Not sure man,” Kanata replied, and he sounded out of breath. “Right now it’s just me, Quitterie and Luca, and we just made it out of that other creepy ship.”</p><p>‘Just three…?’ Zack forced himself not to say. ‘What on Astra happened down there?’</p><p>“We’re out as well!” came in another voice onto the system, one Zack recognized as Charce. “We ended up going out from the very entrance we used to get it. Where are you guys?”</p><p>“We got out from one of the many holes this place has!” Luca was the one who replied in place of the would-be captain. “We had to squeeze ourselves through, because somehow, Kanata was able to bend a piece of the metal and make just enough room for us to pass.”</p><p>“You have no idea how much Quitterie complained about crawling through that place,” Kanata added with a laugh, and it calmed Zack even more to hear that even in such a life-threatening situation his girl was still herself. Somehow.</p><p>“Yeah! How was I supposed to know what was on the other side!” Quitterie argued. “For all I knew there could have been a monster on the other side waiting to ravish me!”</p><p>“Ravish? Really?” Luca said, perplexed, even if he sounded more and more out of breath with each word.</p><p>“There wasn’t one though,” Kanata argued. “And good thing too! I didn’t want to be ravished either.”</p><p>“…I don’t think that’s the issue at hand,” Luca added. “…At least, I hope not…”</p><p>“Kanata, I think I can see you,” Zack heard Charce say. And, to his relief, they sounded much clearer with every passing second. “Aries and I are to your left, coming down the rock structure.”</p><p>“I got ya!” Kanata shot back. “Let me give you guys a hand!”</p><p>“Is Aries okay?” Luca could be heard saying. “For someone as bubbly as her, she’s awfully quiet.”</p><p>“Her communication system seems to be down,” Charce offered. “Don’t worry, though, she’s still very expressive.”</p><p>“I’m halfway to the entrance,” Zack announced as he made a sharp turn that almost caused the boy to slam his shoulder against the wall’s border. “I’ll be there in roughly four minutes. Is there anything chasing you?”</p><p>“Four minutes?!” Quitterie shouted out. “Are you power walking your way to us? Run, you moron, run!”</p><p>“I am running!” Zack shot back, running as fast as his legs could carry him. “I was at the bridge, it’s not that small a ship.”</p><p>“…I-I’m at the entrance,” another voice called out, one which took Zack a few moments to register. The last member of their group, the ever quiet Yun-hua, had somehow found herself at the right place, at the right time.</p><p>“Wait, is that…?” Charce could be heard asking.</p><p>“I-It’s Yun-hua,” she announced, and seemed to take a deep breath before forcing herself to speak some more. “I’m in front of the… the main door right now. Where you exited. Is there something I can do?”</p><p>“Yes! You can open it! Hurry!” Quitterie could be heard shouting. Zack frowned.</p><p>“Yun-hua, there is a lit-up touch panel to the right of the door,” Zack instructed. “Right on the bottom of said panel there must be an option which shows the word “open” on it. You can simply tap it and drag it downwards, which will by extension open the main doors.”</p><p>“A-Alright,” the songstress replied, as she moved herself from her position towards the panel. True to form, it was just as Zack had described it, up and including the main “open” feature. “I’m opening it now.”</p><p>“Great! We are just about there!” Kanata could be heard shouting, and through the see-through doors, Yun-hua could see him and the others rushing towards the ship. Her eyes widened, seeing just five of them. No Working Joe. </p><p>No teacher.</p><p>She shook her head, she needed to focus on saving them first. So she motioned towards the panel…</p><p>“Do not open that door!” was blasted onto all of their helmets, causing the kids to freeze up momentarily. The voice was familiar, but not overly so. Yun-hua eyes just scanned her surroundings, half-afraid, her fingers inches from the panel.</p><p>Zack, still mid-run, finally placed a face onto that voice. ‘That’s the pilot!’</p><p>“Do not let them in little miss,” their pilot, the previously offering nothing more than radio silence Gustav Tallahassee warned, his tone dripping with venom. “We’ve received word from our superiors. There is clearly something out there, and these kids may have come into contact with it. We cannot just let them in.”</p><p>“What?!” Quitterie shouted out, as she managed to reach the main doors and slammed her fists against it. “Open up! We are in serious danger out here!”</p><p>“W-Why can’t we…?” Yun-hua tried, as her eyes met with Quitterie’s, and seeing the look of pure despair broke her.</p><p>“We must follow the rules or else we’ll endanger everyone aboard this vessel,” Tallahassee replied.</p><p>“B-But-”</p><p>“Do you want to be responsible for the death of everyone onboard?!” Tallahassee shouted out, and Yun-hua felt like her entire world was crumbling. Why was this happening? Why was this falling on her, of all people?</p><p>“Don’t listen to him!” Quitterie begged, tears running down her cheeks, hitting the doors to get Yun-hua’s attention. “Just open up! Please!”</p><p>“I…”</p><p>“Is he serious?!” Kanata blasted out as he managed to approach the entryway, alongside the others. Both he and Luca had assisted Charce and Aries at coming down from the rock formations, only to be met with a locked door. “Why can’t we go in?”</p><p>“Protocol it seems,” Charce offered. “Which while I understand that it is a factor at play, there should be a quarantine option for us to take, and not simply letting us get grabbed by whatever it is got to our teacher.”</p><p>“Wait! Is he seriously not going to allow us back in?!” Luca cried out, looking to the side at Kanata, whose expression turned into one of pure anger.</p><p>“Like hell he is!” the young man shouted. “I’ll break these doors down if I have to!”</p><p>“That’s not advisable,” Charce muttered, but he decided not to push it any further. It wouldn’t help anyone anyways.</p><p>“Yun-hua! P-Please…” Quitterie begged as she pressed herself against the doorway, with tears streaming down her face. Yun-hua simply sighed, consequences be damned, because she couldn’t just sit back and do nothing.</p><p>Yun-hua immediately pressed the panel and dragged the “open” icon down.</p><p>But the door did not open. “…Huh?”</p><p>“Yun-hua!”</p><p>“I-I’m trying!” Yun-hua replied. “I-It’s not working!”</p><p>“I’ve shut it down,” Tallahassee announced, his voice somber but decided. “I’m sorry. This ship does not offer the sufficient quarantine methods to be able to attend you all, nor the medical personnel required. Remain outside, I’ve sent out a call. Once they arrive, you will be assisted.”</p><p>“What part of there’s something out there you don’t understand?!” Luca shouted out, almost on the verge of tears himself.</p><p>“Professor Yamanobe is missing!” Kanata roared. “We need to regroup and try to find him! You just can’t leave us out like this!”</p><p>Tallahassee said nothing more, as the five kids felt the coldness of space beginning to grab a hold of them. Yun-hua was already crying, whispering apologies at the bawling Quitterie, for not acting sooner, before their frightened pilot had overtaken the system. Aries and Luca looked despaired, while Charce was pensive. Kanata screamed out, beginning to punch the door with as much force as he could. But, they knew it would not break. It was meant to resist re-entry, no human force would be able to even dent it.</p><p>Then came Zack, rushing through and reaching Yun-hua. She quickly turned to him, tears refusing to stop, half wondering if he was going to scream at her, and half knowing she’d deserve it. Instead, to her surprise, he went right towards the panel, and in one fell swoop, pulled the entire thing out.</p><p>“Z-Zack,” a crying Quitterie called out, and his expression became determined.</p><p>“Our so-called pilot may have the power to override the system,” he told them, as he grabbed a hold of several wires and began to shuffle them. What he was doing, Yun-hua was not certain, but she could try to guess. Then he pressed two against each other, his attention shifted towards the doors. “But there’s no machine on Astra that cannot be hacked.”</p><p>And the doors blasted open, allowing five scared kids to come rushing inside, all gasping for air and on the verge of collapse. Zack immediately went towards Quitterie, who instinctively reach out and wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing her face against his chest. She cried, just as Luca and Aries did. Kanata seemed to cry as well, but he seemed to be under the impression that men must not be seen crying, and was trying to downplay it. Only Charce held up, not any less relieved, as he tugged on Yun-hua’s arm, squeezing her hand softly as if to say that it was alright.</p><p>“What have these kids done?” Tallahassee murmured to himself as he stood up from his chair, his eyes glancing at the screen that showed the happy reunion. ‘This could get us all killed. I’m not about to die here just for a bunch of sentimental brats. I have to nip this in the bud right here and now!’</p><p>As he declared this to himself, he quickly went towards the door to the communications room and pressed to open it.</p><p>It did not open.</p><p>He paused, eyes wide. Then he pressed again. Same result. He felt his body give out cold sweat. He tried again. And again. And again. And every time he did, the door would not budge.</p><p>“What the hell?!” he shouted out, slamming his fists onto the door. “Why is it not opening?! I need to get out! What the hell is going on?!”</p><p>“He sounds mad,” Funicia could be heard saying from the other side of the door, much to Tallahassee’s horror.</p><p>“Does he now?” Ulgar was heard responding, and at that moment Tallahassee knew how much he had been screwed. As the delinquent beanie-wearing boy stood right outside his door, Tallahassee was certain of what had just happened. And certain that he wasn’t getting out anytime soon. “That’s a pity then,” Ulgar continued, smirking as he clenched the panel that controlled the communication room’s door. “He shouldn’t have locked himself in there then.”</p><p>“Damn right!” Beego cheerfully replied.</p><p>-0-</p><p>The nine students who mere hours before had nothing on their minds but camping and school credits found themselves seated across the main dining table, pensive and quiet, each registering the turn of events and how every single thing had somehow spiraled out of control. They had at least all managed to stop crying, Kanata noted. Quitterie especially, as she curled herself up against Zack with Funicia in turn curled up in her lap. The rest just looked on, each seeming to want to say something, but not finding the strength to say it. Despite how much he tried to argue against it, Kanata felt the same way. He felt scared. Just like he did back then…</p><p>He shook his head. That would not help anyone. What could help, however…</p><p>“The more scared you get, the more you panic,” Kanata broke the silence saying, catching the other eight failed rescuers off-guard. He had spoken so firmly that for a moment the others had no idea who he was even talking to.</p><p>“Have you fully lost you mind?” Ulgar asked with a scoff, resting his head on his fist.</p><p>“Maybe,” Kanata replied with a smile. “But that, my friend, is one of my trademark survival tips. Something I learned from a teacher I had quite some time ago, and someone who was insanely dependable. Someone who would not freeze up under these circumstances as we all are doing now.”</p><p>“That’s does sound so wise!” Aries said as she placed her hands together, amazed at the sudden display of knowledge Kanata seemed to have. It caused the boy to blush and sheepishly add that it wasn’t much. The rest were not as impressed.</p><p>“It sounded stupidly obvious to me,” Quitterie snarked, which caused Kanata to childishly pout in her direction. It, however, made both Zack and Funicia smile a bit, as hearing her sounding much like how she usually was.</p><p>“He’s not wrong,” Luca added. “That said, it doesn’t help us in the slightest. I’m sure we already way past the “scared” part and are now headlong into the “panic” part.”</p><p>“I wouldn’t go that far,” Charce offered. “While slightly, erm, childishly put… no offense,” Charce added when he saw Kanata glare at him. “What I’m saying it was enough to break the ice and get us talking. We clearly were not going to get anywhere with each of us lost in our own dark thoughts, so thank you Kanata. Seems like there is something resembling a Captain in there after all.”</p><p>“Oh you! You don’t have to go that far! I-I just did what anyone would do!” the clearly bashful would-be Captain said barely able to hide his joy at the words directed at him. The others found it absurd. All except for Aries, who warmly smiled at the display.</p><p>“So…” Aries spoke up, trying to keep the conversation going. “Is there anything we can do?”</p><p>“Our teacher is still out there,” Kanata said, his eyes turning towards the nearby window, with only darkness visible beyond it. “And there’s the very real threat that there is something out there with him. Something that actually approached you and Charce, right?”</p><p>“I didn’t catch a glimpse of it myself,” Charce explained, turning to the pink-haired girl. “Did you get a good look at it Aries?”</p><p>“No,” she replied earnestly. “It was too dark. So much so that I couldn’t even tell where it was standing… if it was standing at all. But… it seemed to be lunging at you. Reaching out.”</p><p>“That sounds so very freaky!” Luca cried out.</p><p>“We were outside with that thing!” Quitterie joined in, but the moment she felt Funicia stiffen in her grasp she realized her little sister was probably even more frightened than she was. So, doing something that not even Zack expected of her, she softly squeezed Funicia against her own body. “But, whatever it is, it’s out there. It cannot come in here.”</p><p>Funicia looked up, at the same sister she had received nothing but indifference ever since they were introduced to one another. The same sister she knew had every right to be absolutely terrified right now. Funicia could do nothing but smile and nod, resting her head on her older sister’s chest, feeling as protected as she ever could.</p><p>“Are we even sure it can’t come in-” Luca began, but was cut off when Ulgar grabbed the petite boy by the hair and tugged on it. “Ouch!”</p><p>“It can’t,” the dark haired boy responded. “But that’s not the end our problems. We have no teacher. No android. And, effectively, no pilot.”</p><p>“Dude’s still locked up in the communication’s room, right?” Kanata asked, as he turned to Ulgar, who nodded, and then to Zack.</p><p>“…He can’t do much from there anymore,” Zack explained. “Hoping he was being sincere, then he already sent out a distress call, which should hopefully be caught by someone back at Astra. Other than that, I’ve disabled the controls he had to keep any door open or closed, which means we’ll have to do everything manually, but there’s really no alternative right now. However… our biggest problem is E.W.A. We have no way to control that system, not without Mr. Yamanobe with us.”</p><p>“Can’t you hack that too?” Ulgar asked, even if he felt like he knew the answer already.</p><p>“No,” was Zack’s simple response. “It’s much too advance for me. A door is one thing. A ship’s motherboard is something else. Tampering with the Anti-Piracy safeguards alone would probably cause the ship to turn off all of its systems, including the anti-gravity and the oxygen providers.”</p><p>“Is that all?” Luca asked, throwing himself back onto his chair, defeated. “Ah! We’re so gonna die!”</p><p>“Hey!” Quitterie shot back, signaling to Funicia. “Can you not be at least a bit positive?!”</p><p>“Ah!” Luca repeated in the same tone. “We’re so gonna die quickly!”</p><p>Quitterie said nothing. She wanted to smack him right upside the head, but his comment had actually made Funicia laugh, so she’d let it pass.</p><p>“So… I’m almost afraid to ask, but what are our options?” Kanata asked, as he eyed Zack. The white-haired boy frowned for a moment.</p><p>“…Waiting, for a rescue that may or may not come,” Zack replied, and they all felt the hopelessness threaten to swallow them up all over again. Kanata clenched his fists, knowing this feeling all too well. Granted, the circumstances were different, but in a way, also similar.</p><p>“Survival tip!” he announced, and the group turned to him with the most flabbergasted expressions they could all respectively muster, actually wondering if he was about to say something stupid again. “As long as you move forward, you are making progress!” he declared as he slammed his fist onto the table. “If we just surrender ourselves to despair we can kiss our lives goodbye. So we need to act!”</p><p>“How?!” both Quitterie and Luca asked in unison, before the both paused and glared at each other for thinking the same way.</p><p>“How else?” Kanata argued. “I’m not about to leave our teacher behind out there if he really is in danger. Plus, if we retrieve him, he can control E.W.A., right?”</p><p>“Yes,” Zack replied, realizing Kanata’s plan. Kanata’s very-risky-go-back-into-danger plan.</p><p>“Are you suggesting we go back into that ship?” Charce asked, half bemused.</p><p>“Not we,” Kanata replied. “Me.”</p><p>“Wait, you don’t seriously think that you can just go waltzing in there by yourself, do you?” Luca asked, his concern beating out his fear.</p><p>“Sure I can!” Kanata replied completely earnest, then added: “Getting out is another thing entirely, but I’ll give it my best try!”</p><p>“That’s not what he means idiot!” Quitterie reprimanded.</p><p>“You guys barely got out of there, and there were initially six of you,” Ulgar added. “Seven if you include the droid. For as macho-tough as you are, if there really is something in there that can whisk a grown man like Yamanobe within moments without any of you three noticing, I don’t think you alone would be anything more than an after-course dessert for the thing.”</p><p>“Do you have to make it sound so terrifying?” Luca asked, shifting towards the dark haired boy sitting beside him.</p><p>“I wasn’t the one running like a maniac and crying my eyes out while traversing that place,” Ulgar shot back. “You guys were there, you saw what we might be dealing with. Do you think just sending this lone idiot in there will result in anything except just one more missing member?”</p><p>“Why don’t we send the guy who wanted to lock us out?” Quitterie offered up her tribute. “See how he likes being stuck out there.”</p><p>“We should refrain from murdering anyone,” Zack added, which earned him a glare from the girl.</p><p>“It could be argued as it being manslaughter,” Charce offered, which caused Ulgar to laugh softly.</p><p>“Not sure how the hell that would even help,” Ulgar said.</p><p>“Then, what do we do?” Luca cut in. “We can’t just send Kanata in there by himself.”</p><p>“Why not?” Kanata argued. “I’ve trained half my life for this. I can be stealthy and I can run and climb with the best of them. Plus!” he said, as he quickly stood up, preparing a little show-and-tell for the group. They all stared, confused. Kanata the slammed his foot on the floor, and launched himself into the air…</p><p>…for just several feet before he came tumbling down and landed flat on his face.</p><p>“Then the alien grabs him by the ass and he’s dead,” Beego spoke up, causing the other seven kids to turn their attention from the downed wannabe Captain towards their youngest, surprisingly foul-mouthed member.</p><p>“Funi!”</p><p>“It was Beego!”</p><p>“Beego’s not wrong,” Luca added, turning to the fallen Kanata. “Was there something you wanted to show us with that?”</p><p>“…Yeah,” the embarrassed young man voiced. “But I think I busted my anti-gravity shoes when I took care of the thief back at Mousanish. Well… there goes that plan of attack.”</p><p>“I feel responsible for that…” Aries voiced with a slight blush, remembering the rescue Kanata had provided to her before they had even formally met. “I promise I’ll pay for another set once we-”</p><p>“MAIN DOORS APERTURE ACTIVATED,” was heard throughout, cutting off Aries line of thought as E.W.A. began an announcement. The crew all stared right up at the screens, wondering if their pilot turned captor had managed to somehow crawl out or gotten control of the system, but the E.W.A. added: “ENTRY ACCEPTED. WELCOME BACK PROFESSOR YAMANOBE.”</p><p>“Wait, our teacher?” Luca asked, as he stood up from the table. The rest immediately followed suit, and the nine students of Caird High found themselves rushing down the narrow halls of their ship as they made their way towards the main doors once again. Without them needing to do anything at all, there situation could be resolved. Maybe it was nothing after all. Maybe it had been their overactive imaginations at work. Maybe they had never been in any real danger at all.</p><p>They all rushed, the despair slowly lifting from them, as they reached the now open doors. Helmets instinctively in place, to avoid contact with the alien atmosphere, the nine reached the spot where the hoped to find their thought to be lost teacher. And find him they did.</p><p>But just as soon as they did, their despair came back in full force, as it was a sight they had not imagined in even their worst nightmares.</p><p>Their also thought to be lost android, Carl, stood before them, glowing eyes staring down at the teacher it had somehow brought in with itself. The man in charge of their trip was laying haphazardly on the cold floor, his suit burned in several spots, his body motionless except for systematic chest movements. </p><p>His helmet shattered, and in its place, a spider-like creature tightly clinging onto his very skull.</p><p>-0-</p><p>In the vastness of space, light-years away from the students of Caird High, another ship traversed the stars. Traveling faster than light, its course set for a return to Astra, the ship itself massive when compared to the one the kids found themselves in. Big, bold letters on its side spelled out “IDCSS Losuca”, itself carrying a crew no larger than eight.</p><p>Inside, a lone female exited one of the many offices on the ship, finding herself face-to-face with two others, their attention fully focused on the room she had just been in. She eyed them, cocking her brow. “I had no idea our work on this trip was already done,” she expressed with the ever slight hint of sarcasm. “Why are you two loitering about? And, please, Neil, you’re not a child, don’t sit on that equipment. It’s much more expensive than what you’ll manage to make in your lifetime.”</p><p>“Wow, harsh,” the young dark-skinned man, Neil, voiced, getting himself off the supposed equipment. It had looked like any old box to him. “If that’s your attitude after a successful rescue mission, I’d hate to see you after a failure, eh Marissa?”</p><p>“Hmm…” Marissa voiced, cocking her head to the side. “If it makes you feel any better, it’s worth more than I’ll make in my lifetime as well.”</p><p>“Not really,” Neil replied. “Your status doesn’t make me any less poor.”</p><p>Marissa scoffed at this, as the other young man shifted himself from eyeing the two and turned towards the closed medical room.</p><p>“…She alright?” he asked, signaling to the closed doors with his chin. “She seemed rather shaken.”</p><p>“Cryogenic sleep will do that to you,” Marissa replied.</p><p>“Tokiro here is just in awe at seeing a real blonde,” Neil joked, tugging at the other’s sleeve playfully. Tokiro seemed unamused, as he simply shrugged it off.</p><p>“As if,” Tokiro said. “This wasn’t in our job description back when we deported from Astra. And such a find, well, I assume we’ll get mightily compensated for it, no?”</p><p>“Why would I know the specifics?” Marissa shot back, her hands on her hips and her brow raised.</p><p>“Well, you are our Warrant Officer,” Neil offered, which caused Marissa to scoff.</p><p>“That has nothing to do with pay,” she replied.</p><p>“Maybe not,” Tokiro added. “But you are of a higher rank than us. You must know at least something.”</p><p>“…Relax, both of you,” she said, her tone still sharp. “I assure you, you’ll both get everything that’s coming to you… Now, to work. If I see you messing around I’m reporting you both to central.”</p><p>“Yes ma’am,” the both answered with a hint of mockery, but she ignored it. They did move and went back to their stations, which is all she needed them to do. She then moved across the ship’s interior, her work with her sort-of patient done for the moment, and headed back to the bridge, wondering what it was she was even supposed to report.</p><p>“I’m cramping up, are you done already?” Marissa heard the youngest amongst them complaining, and she had to mentally prepare herself to avoid sighing out loud. As she made her way onto the bridge she could see the complainer, the teenaged Kyla Gould, younger sister of the earlier loitering-instead-of-working Neil Gould, apparently posing for a picture. However, instead for a quick snapshot from one of the many cameras that they all carried, the “artist” capturing her image was using a far older, slower method.</p><p>“A drawing, seriously?” Marissa asked, as she walked right past the two.</p><p>“He insisted,” Kyla replied, barely able to keep herself in position. “Had I known I would have to pose for over fifteen minutes, I’d have told him to go to hell.”</p><p>“Don’t move,” came a soft command, which caused Kyla to frown and force herself even more not to move. “…I am almost done. Art takes time.”</p><p>“You have a funny way of seeing art Ast,” Kyla whined, but relented. Before her, her painter was a very young-looking boy, no older than ten, with very dark hair that almost, almost hid his very bright pair of eyes, which were currently scanning what she believed was her very soul. Kid was very attentive to detail, she noted.</p><p>“I do?” he asked, not taking his eyes off her or the drawing, but curious nonetheless. Kyla just shrugged, which caused the boy to again ask her not to move, which irked her more, and the cycle seemed to continue without end.</p><p>“Damn it Brandon, can you not use the main panel as a foot rest?” Marissa called out as she approached their pilot, a very hefty individual who sat haphazardly on his chair, barely turning from his spot to acknowledge an approaching Marissa.</p><p>“Oh, let me guess, you’ll take it out of my paycheck when they machine-wash this entire piece of junk?” he whined, but his feet were not removed from the panels, much to Marissa’s annoyance.</p><p>“Why do you all seem to think I pay anyone?” she said rubbing her temple. She couldn’t quite take any more of this. She wanted to go home. Back to Astra. Back to peace.</p><p>“Seems like they misunderstand what the “warrant” in your title refers to,” came a voice from behind her, causing her slight relief upon hearing him joining the bridge. The ship’s Captain, and the only soul aboard that vessel she actually trusted.</p><p>“You think?” she said, turning to him with a genuine smile.</p><p>“I would hope so, otherwise they are just being smartasses and that is just plain rude,” the Captain of the IDCSS Losuca, Jed Nashville, spoke with the same air of confidence he was always known for. For all the professionalism she tried to maintain, even Marissa could not deny she always felt a little out of breath whenever she saw him up close. A boulder of a man, who, as an ex-Colonial Marine, was built like an action film hero. “You heard the lady, feet off,” he told his pilot, with an added smack on his feet which caused Brandon to yelp and take his feet down.</p><p>“I was gonna,” he complained.</p><p>“Not fast enough it seems,” Jed added, as he took a seat on his own chair, the center piece reserved strictly for him. Then he turned to her. “Marissa, what about our guest?” he asked, and she frowned. She still had no idea what to report exactly. “How’s she holding up? Do you think she needs something any of us can provide?”</p><p>“No,” Marissa quickly answered. “She needs a doctor. An actual one. My skills only go so far. I… don’t think she’s in any danger, but she should get a full physical just to be safe.”</p><p>“But you think she’ll make it back to Astra fine and dandy?” Jed specified, and Marissa nodded. “…Good, that’s good enough for us. Our work will be done by then. We can then turn our focus to-the hell?”</p><p>Marissa paused, wondering what the change in tone was about, until she followed her Captain’s line of sight and was met by a very surprising message plastered on the main screens, in bright, bold letters so it would not be missed.</p><p>“I swear I did not touch anything,” Brandon quickly added defensively.</p><p>“I don’t think that’s something you could even do,” Marissa added, reading the sudden message.</p><p>“Well, change of plans it seems,” Jed noted, his fist clenching slightly. “Seems there’s something in need of picking up… I don’t suppose any of you know much about these Group B5 fellows, right?”</p><p>-0-</p><p>“Set him up in that table!” Kanata cried out as he carried Yamanobe limp body towards one of the beds in the medical room, him carrying the fallen teacher by the torso, with Charce holding his feet up to assist. They set him down softly, with Charce moving to check his pulse, and being perplexed at feeling that it was almost normal, as if he was simply asleep.</p><p>“What even is that thing?” Aries asked, as she peered down and examined what appeared to be a creature wrapped around their teacher’s face, clinging onto him fiercely. She could see how Yamanobe’s chest was slowly inflated and deflated, clearly the mark of a man breathing, but… how?</p><p>“Stand back Aries, I’ll rip this thing out,” Kanata told her, as he moved to grab hold of the parasite, before he was smacked upside the head by Quitterie.</p><p>“Are you insane!” she barked. “Can you not see how connected it is to him? In the best of scenarios you’ll only break a few bones and maybe rip off the skin from his face, in the worse… well, it could get bloody.”</p><p>“Well shit, really?!” Kanata was taken aback, stopping himself from even touching the foreign body. “B-But… what can we do? How are we…?”</p><p>“Is there anything you can try to do Quitterie?” Zack asked, turning towards the girl. She narrowed her eyes, as if frightened by the very suggestion.</p><p>“…What are you even trying to imply?” she asked, clearly fighting back the tears once more. “My mom’s the doctor, not me. I-I am not qualified to do this.”</p><p>“You know medicine?” Kanata asked, and it hurt her that he sounded hopeful.</p><p>“I said my mom is the one that does!” Quitterie shot back. “I only know the basics. The stupid common things that she made my babysitters hammer into my skull in hopes that I’d follow in her footsteps. Nothing like this-”</p><p>“That’s enough,” Kanata argued. “Teach here doesn’t have the luxury for anything better. Quitterie, you’re all he has, all we have, please, give it a try.”</p><p>“Are you mental?!” Quitterie lashed out, so loudly that it caused Funicia to instinctively back away from her sister and onto Aries’ arms, which the latter was quick to hold onto her tightly. “I’m not playing doctor just on the off chance I can save him! I can’t do it!”</p><p>“You already stopped me from doing something stupid!” Kanata argued. “In my eyes, you saved him and me already! You can do this, no, you have to! How are we surviving this if we don’t all do our best?!”</p><p>“B-But…” she sounded like she was almost begging at this point, “…why does it have to be me…?”</p><p>“Quitterie…” Zack began, but he was cut off by the pink-haired girl.</p><p>“Because we believe in you Quitterie,” Aries offered, and it sounded so damn earnest that Quitterie couldn’t stay mad upon hearing it. She just stared, eyes wide, at what was almost a complete stranger saying the words that she’d have given anything to hear from her own mother at least just once.</p><p>“…Damn you,” Quitterie muttered, closing her eyes, and taking a deep breath. “…Fine you damn pink weirdo. I’ll try treating it like a parasite, maybe I can remove it very carefully. But, first, let’s try and take an ex-ray, to see how much it’s invading on his syst… Well, what are you all just standing there for! Bring me all the medical equipment we have, plenty of water, and help me connect the ex-ray machine! Move!”</p><p>Zack couldn’t help but smile at the display from the girl he had known for half of his life, taking command in such a way he would have never expected of her otherwise, but that he certainly knew she had in her. He, alongside the others, did as they were told, moving quickly to secure everything she’d need. She then ordered each of them to do something specific, something suited to what she believed was their best attributes, and she did it without thinking, like a professional would, much to their shock.</p><p>Similarly surprising was little Funicia’s reply to all this. Upon being given the simplest of orders, because of course, she simply smiled and raised Beego, giving off a salute with the puppet’s tiny hands.</p><p>“Aye yeah!”</p><p>-0-</p><p>“He’s just standing there… menacingly,” Luca spoke up as he walked through the lower deck’s corridors, trailing Zack as the two approached their target. Standing there, completely still and his head slightly facing upwards, was the Working Joe that had brought in their teacher all by itself. Carl had said nothing, simply moved away from the group when they began to tend to their fallen teacher and retreated to this very spot. “So… you want to remove this guy’s recording chip to see if we can see what happened back there. You sure he’ll like that?”</p><p>“These models have a recording feature,” Zack explained, as he approached the motionless android. “Feelings should not be a matter when it comes to him…” Zack added, but hesitated in touching the faceplate of the robot, for once agreeing with Quitterie at just how damn uncanny these things really looked. “At least, I hope he doesn’t mind.”</p><p>“…Why is he looking up?” Luca asked, following the robot’s line of sight, which stopped right at the ceiling, showing nothing of importance.</p><p>“I very much doubt he’s looking at anything,” Zack replied. “Maybe he damaged his neck. Notall that surprising honestly; if there really is something dangerous out there. Hopefully, Carl here actually saw-”</p><p>“Watch out!”</p><p>“Holy sh-”</p><p>Zack and Luca heard the commotion before they realized what was even happening. They had clearly heard Kanata first, then Quitterie, but those two should still be in the medical room with the rest, which was… up?</p><p>Both Zack and Luca froze, realization hitting them at the same time, both etching their faces upwards as their gazes once again shifted towards the spot the android was focusing on. At that very moment, smoke began to emit itself from the very roof, causing both boys to stammer back in response.</p><p>“What’s that?!” Luca cried out, scared.</p><p>“Stand back!” Zack advised, as his mind began to race about what was even going on. Before he could, a very powerful substance ate through the roof, spilling down onto the Working Joe’s face, who simply stood there as half of its face was melted on contact. The acidic substance did not stop there, burning half of its face off before spilling onto the floor and burning the floor, breaking through it completely, leaving a few small, smoking holes in its place.</p><p>“Did you see what I just saw?” a barely kept together Luca asked, almost clinging onto the wall to stay away from the acid and the now disfigured android.</p><p>“How powerful an agent must that even be?” Zack muttered, before he stared right up and shouted out. “Quitterie! Kanata! Are you both alright?! Is anyone-?!”</p><p>“How is any of this even remotely alright?!” Quitterie shouted right back, which despite her tone calmed the young man. She was alright, and so were the others he imagined. “I tried to cut that damn monster off and it peed acid on me!”</p><p>“Peed?” Zack asked, confused. Could any creature even be capable of such a thing?</p><p>“That was piss?” he heard a likewise agitated Kanata ask. He seemed just as surprise.</p><p>“Either that or this thing bleeds acid!” Quitterie theorized, and Zack had no idea which of the two sounded more outrageous, or more deadly.</p><p>“Are you guys okay?” was heard through the conversation channels, as Charce spoke up to them, his tone showcasing how worried he had gotten when he heard the screams.</p><p>“Nah, yeah, we’re fine!” Kanata replied, even as Quitterie muttered a “speak for yourself” under her breath. “Little sucker is putting up quite the fight.”</p><p>“Be careful with that substance,” Zack warned. “It burned down all the way down here, and probably even more. Luca and I will verify just how far deep it went.”</p><p>“We will?” Luca asked.</p><p>“We should,” Zack replied, before his attention shifted to the burnt droid. ‘It can’t possibly be watching what we are doing from here… can it…?’</p><p>“Oh, that’s good, do be careful everyone,” Charce told them. “I’ll be right there, almost got everything we need,” he said as he stood in the bridge, his eyes scanning the main monitors, his brow furrowed. Then he turned off the communication system on his suit, closing his eyes briefly as he wondered why everything had spiraled so out of control so suddenly. ‘First a distress call, then an alien aircraft, then an unknown creature, and now… this.’</p><p>On the screens, the full message on display, which he had just managed to unlock, unbeknownst to all the other students aboard that spaceship. It read:</p><p>Special Order 937:<br/>“PRIORITY ONE – INSURE RETURN OF ORGANISM FOR ANALYSIS. ALL OTHER CONSIDERATIONS SECONDARY. CREW EXPENDABLE. STUDENTS EXPENDABLE.”</p><p>“…And here I thought it was supposed to be a secret from everyone,” Charce muttered to himself half-jokingly, as he turned the message off before he moved to reopen his communications with the others, but in doing so, he felt his blood turn icy-cold when he noticed something. “…What the-?”</p><p>Unbeknownst to him, back in the medical room, as the other members of the Group B5 ran around trying their best to save their teacher from his terrible fate, the pink-haired young girl paused briefly, in-between assisting Quitterie with her attempts, as she dropped the little piece of hardware she had picked up in the dark corridors of the large alien ship on LV-426.</p><p>She bent down, picking it up, and wondering briefly what it really was, before she stored it away and continued helping. She was sure it was related to her downed communication system.</p><p>Because, after all, what else could this little remote-like device be for?</p>
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